SOS
by Griselda Banks
Summary: Twoshot. "The shadows of Alphonse's prison sliced right through him, attacking that soft spot as soon as he thought of it. Alone. Pitiful. Weak. Helpless. Alone, alone, alone!" Figurative, NOT Elricest - may I never have to say that again.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is a figurative story inspired by Ayumi Elric's "Shadows Within: Prison." The main body of the story is meant to be abstract and figurative, and the little bit at the end is what's 'really' happening in the 'real' world. I hope you can understand and enjoy this piece, because I rather like it. The beautiful, gorgeous, utterly perfect cover art can be found here: levi-khane dot deviantart dot com / art / FMA-quot-SOS-quot-188329109**

_"When I reach ... I reach for you."_

_- 'You Run' by Submersed_

Alphonse Elric's sobs echoed around the empty room, hitting the walls and bouncing back to mock him. He tried to shut out the sound, but it only intensified the harder he tried, for the more desperate he became, the more he cried and the more the sounds bounced all around him. He tried to staunch the flow of his tears, to wrap a figurative tourniquet around his throat and keep them in check, but they defiantly refused to be stopped. Nothing he did could stop them, and the more he realized this, the harder he cried. It was an endless spiral, and it frightened him more than he would have liked to admit.

Alphonse was shivering, though he hugged his knees close to his chest and curled himself into as small a ball as possible. But nothing could keep out the eternal cold of this room. He could feel the chill rising through the floor he sat on, could see his breath misting in the air at every palpitating sob. Where his clothes had gone, he did not know, but he _did_ know that he was naked, and that did nothing to help keep away the terrible chill. Little bumps had risen all over his flesh, and they would not smooth out, no matter how much he rubbed them.

Raising his head for the tenth, hundredth, or maybe even the thousandth time, Alphonse saw that the room had not changed a bit since the last time he had checked. There were still those immensely tall, slightly curving walls, made of some cold, smooth material that seemed to catch the chill in the air and contain it, like a reverse greenhouse. The walls had no seams; Alphonse had already discovered that. It wouldn't matter if he scraped at them for the rest of his life; he could never dig his way out. The floor was made out of the same, seamless material; he could not escape it, no matter what he did.

For the fifth time (or maybe it was the eighth, or the seventy-sixth, or the nine hundredth), Alphonse pushed himself to his feet and threw himself at the wall. He beat it with his fists, sobbing uncontrollably, begging in a throbbing voice to be let out. There was no one to hear, no one who _could_ hear, but still he called out, still he pounded the wall till his knuckles were bloody. He barely even noticed the pain anymore, for he had already repeated this more times than he could remember.

Finally, he had to stop. He pressed both palms flat against the smooth, cold wall and rested his forehead against the expanse between them. "Please..." he whispered feebly. "Someone...help..."

The very walls seemed to laugh at him, the echoes of his words dancing around him and sticking out their little tongues, giggling with glee at how helpless he was. He shuddered as he heard them, the ghosts of his own words, so pitiful, so alone. The shadows of his prison sliced right through him, attacking that soft spot as soon as he thought of it. _Alone. Pitiful. Weak. Helpless. Alone, alone, alone!_

"Shut up!" Alphonse screamed, whirling around and startling the shadows enough for them to retreat momentarily into the corners of the room. "Just leave me alone! Haven't you done enough to me already?"

The shadows got over their surprise, and they crept back towards him. He could see them out of the corners of his eyes, inching towards him, whispering again the very words he had said, echoed a thousand times by the cold walls. _Alone. Alone. Leave me alone. Haven't you done enough? Enough? Enough, enough, enough!_

"Stop!" Alphonse howled, flailing about through the shadows, punching and kicking and whirling and spinning, over and under and all around the room, just as he had learned from his Master. But no matter how hard he fought, he could never grasp the shadows, never feel his fists collide against them, and ever they mocked him, mimicking his movements and splattering them grotesquely on the walls, haunting him and goading him onward.

He was sobbing again. But then, he was always sobbing, it seemed. One might think there would be a limit to how many tears one can cry. But if one thought that, one would be wrong. Alphonse never found the limit, so he always cried.

At last Alphonse had to admit defeat. Again. He dropped to his knees in the middle of the room, and as the shadows beat his bare back, he fell forward onto his hands as well. Hunched over, he stared at the floor spattered with his own tears and let the shadows carry on with their torment. He was like Rapunzel, he reflected. The difference was that Rapunzel was trapped on the top of an unassailable tower, and he was stuck in the lowest dungeon. Other than that, though, they were the same. They both were captives, held against their will in a prison that could not be breached.

As the shadows sapped him of all his strength, Alphonse slumped down onto the cold ground, where he lay prostrate for the twentieth or the seven thousandth time. His strength would return, he knew, as it always did, and then the battle would begin again. But for now, he could not muster up the energy to even curl up in a ball in the attempt to hold in a little of his body's heat. He wondered: If he was Rapunzel, would there be a Prince Charming to come rescue him?

_Well, the part about the hair wouldn't work._ A tired smile curved Alphonse's lips. His golden hair hung ragged down his back, almost to his waist. But even if he did have yards and yards of hair, it would never work for the reverse of Rapunzel. Unfortunately, if a Prince Charming came along and said, _Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,_ he would have to reply, _I can't._

"Brother..." Alphonse whispered, his voice hoarse from all the screaming. He wanted his big brother to be the Prince Charming, because his brother was smart enough to think up a way to get past the problem with the hair. His brother could come up with a solution to anything. But...maybe this was too hard even for his brother? Maybe this was impossible?

"No," Alphonse whispered in reply to his own questions, for he knew he was the only one who would answer them. "You can do it, Brother. You can find me. You can rescue me. I know you can." He trusted his brother with all his heart. Somehow, his brother would realize where he was, and rescue him. Somehow.

The shadows snickered at him, and Alphonse lay in a pool of his own tears. Tears shed out of fear and the hopelessness of his position. Tears of longing, longing for his brother. Tears that continued to trickle out of his eyes, building up and pouring out, filling up the room. Alphonse knew, as he lay there in the ever-growing puddle, that one day those tears would be over his head. Maybe it would be the ten-thousandth time he collapsed in defeat, or maybe it would be the millionth. All he could hope was that his brother would find him before he drowned.

* * *

"Al?"

"...Huh?"

"Are...Are you okay?"

"Oh... Yeah. I'm fine, Brother."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Many thanks to anyone who reviewed my first chapter. I like the second one better, but we'll see what you think ;) For a beautiful fanart of this chapter, see: levi-khane (dot) deviantart (dot) com / art / FMA-quot-SOS-quot-188329109**

_"I come to you in pieces so you can make me whole."_

_- "Pieces" by Red_

Alphonse desperately gasped for breath, fighting to keep his head above the water. It had happened. He knew it would happen, eventually, and now it had. He had cried so much, never stopping, that his tears had filled the immensely tall room, flooding it. And the room was airtight, so not even the smallest trickle could make its way out. He wanted the tears to get out somehow, to release all this pent-up emotion he was drowning in. But there was no way.

The water level had slowly risen over the past several hundred thousand repetitions of the cycle, and Alphonse could barely remember a time when he hadn't been bobbing in this endless expanse of his own salty tears. He tried to stop crying, but he never could. Every time he looked at the ocean of his tears, he only felt like crying all the more, and that was all it took to break the nonexistent barrier between his eyes and his tears. But Alphonse knew with increasing desperation that he had to stop soon. He _had_ to. The ceiling of the impossibly tall room was very close now; he could easily bump his head against it as he fought to keep above the water level. If he didn't stop, he really _would_ drown himself.

But as always, this knowledge did nothing but make him cry all the more. He was scared, frightened, terrified. He didn't want to die, not in this horrible place. He wanted to escape his prison, if only to see his brother's face one last time. Alphonse continued to beg the walls to burst, but they would not listen to him. The shadows had been drowned long ago, so Alphonse couldn't even beg them to help him. He was alone. Completely, utterly, horribly alone. All he had to keep him company were his own tears, and they would be the death of him before long.

Alphonse's body was tired from struggling to keep above the water level, but he knew he mustn't stop struggling. If he did, he really _would_ drown. Closing his eyes on the tears he continued to shed, Alphonse whispered, "Brother...please. Please come... Save me..."

Several minutes or a thousand years later, Alphonse's face was pressed almost right up against the smooth, cold ceiling. He had wedged himself in a curved part of the wall that he thought of as a corner, holding himself in position so he could still breathe. He knew he had little time left, and this knowledge only made his tears come faster. He wasn't ready to die, not after such a short time. (He laughed at himself, for he knew he had been stuck inside this steel prison for millenia.)

"Alphonse?"

_How my thoughts torment me,_ Alphonse thought. _The shadows are long gone, but they're still here inside me. I suppose that's where they came from in the first place: my soul._

"Alphonse, can you hear me?"

Alphonse slowly opened his eyes, looking at the ceiling mere centimeters from his nose. It looked the same as always; was it only his imagination playing tricks on him? He couldn't be sure anymore, so warped and unreal was reality.

"Please, Alphonse, tell me you're in there. Tell me you're still all right!"

"Brother...?" Alphonse murmured, hardly daring to hope.

But then he heard a dull thump on the other side of the ceiling, and the muffled voice cried out, "Alphonse! Thank... Alphonse, you mustn't cry anymore. You'll drown yourself!"

"I know," Alphonse moaned as a few more tears leaked out.

"Don't cry anymore," Edward urged, his voice a little closer, as though he was pressing his lips right against other side of the metal ceiling. "Please. I'm going to get you out of here, but you _must not_ cry!"

There was a desperation in Edward's voice that frightened Alphonse even more, but the hope that had risen in his chest upon hearing his brother's voice momentarily stalled his tears. "O-Okay..."

There came two thumps on the ceiling above that Alphonse somehow knew were his brother's hands, pressed against the metal. "Promise, Alphonse," Edward urged, a thousand emotions threatening to break through his voice. "Promise me you won't cry."

Alphonse lifted his hands to the ceiling and pressed them against the places where he knew his brother's hands were. "I promise," he whispered, closing his eyes again.

How simple it was now to keep from crying! His brother fell silent, and Alphonse could hear nothing more from the other side, but somehow his troubled heart was at peace. His brother had come to him when he had nearly given up hope of ever hearing Edward's voice again, and now his trust was so bolstered that he could have waited a thousand more years for his brother to rescue him. He could have died, and never have given up hope in his brother.

Alphonse never knew how long it was that he floated there, hands pressed against the ceiling, face barely above the water level, as still as if he was asleep, or dead. All he knew was that at some point, he heard another sound above him. It was a strange, slicing sound of metal on metal. Curious, Alphonse opened his eyes to find a great ribbon of light jabbing across the metal ceiling. It grew and grew, longer and longer, down the entire length of the room, and then...

The halves of the room stayed together for one brief moment, then crashed down with an almighty clatter. All the water in the room rushed out at last, gushing out like a tidal wave at the head of a hurricane. Alphonse felt himself carried along by the wave, buffeted and tossed about like a cork. For a moment, he was afraid the waters would never calm, or that he would be pushed under and drown anyway. But then he hit something solid, something that broke the water and split it in two, pushing it off to either side.

Alphonse fell to the ground when the water ceased pouring out, and he lay there, curled into a ball, dripping and naked, like a newborn baby. His eyes were closed now, for he was too frightened and excited to look at his surroundings. He could tell, from the light behind his eyelids, that he was out of the prison, and this was such a wonderful thought that he barely knew what to do with himself. So he remained in that same position, shivering in the slight wind that breezed across his wet skin.

And then Alphonse was sure he was in heaven – something soft and warm was draped over his body, the edges tucked in, and he was bundled up like a babe in swaddling clothes. It was so warm, so soft, so comforting and so gentle. So unlike everything he had grown used to in his prison. There, everything had been cold and harsh and unpleasant.

If Alphonse had thought he knew warmth, he soon discovered a new depth as someone's arms wrapped around him, lifting him up and letting him rest against their chest. Alphonse could hear someone's heart beating, could feel the chest rising and falling as the someone breathed. That someone was so warm! Alphonse snuggled up against them, curled into a ball of pure happiness. He thought in that moment that he could stay there for ten thousand million years – no, for all eternity. Then the someone whispered his name, and Alphonse realized with a smile that the Someone was his brother.

* * *

"Woah, Al, you're crying buckets."

"I kn-know..."

"You're okay, though? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No. B-Brother...thank you. Thank you so much..."

"Hey, I promised you I'd get your body back, didn't I? I'm just sorry I couldn't get you out of that armor any sooner."

"That's okay, Brother. I'm...safe now. I'll always be safe with you."


End file.
